Her...and HIM
No lover for Valentine's? No soul mate in sight?
Forget about relationships and the heartbreak that goes with it! Get a robot!
Robots have been with us since before Star Wars. They have been cleaning, repairing and some more sophisticated bots will soon be available to cook for us, do the laundry, even babysit or tend to our elderly parents. Last year, a NJ based company introduced a talking, touch-sensitive robot “companion”.
A Japanese robot developer, H. Ishiguro, in Kyoto who also teaches at Osaka University created a silicone doppelgänger so that he can interact on the internet in two places. “You believe I’m real”. If you can’t tell the difference, does it matter in the end whether you’re interacting with a human or machine?
Welcome to the future of dating, living, loving and companionship!
The movie HER (directed by Spike Jonze) opens a window into this future when a withdrawn writer (Joaquin Phoenix) falls in love with his computer's highly advanced ─sentient─ operating system (Scarlett Johansson's voice): A futuristic sci-fi romance?
Is it an odd, sad love story, combined with a meditation on technology as an accelerator of social loneliness? Not a small part of it seems to be an allegory of lonely guys and their fear of women.
Does the movie force us to consider what constitutes a 'real' relationship in a world where every interaction is filtered through technology, making it feel like a vital contemporary romance?
One critic found “The romantic intimacy is remarkable considering the two main characters never kiss, or share an embrace, or even look at one another.”
Jonze is playing with hefty concepts here: loneliness, longing, the nature of consciousness, the need for human connection - and, increasingly, the fear of it. Her is a wistful, wonderful meditation on where we are and where we might be going ─ another reviewer said.
As a former matchmaker who was always faced with the task of finding the perfect match for very client, I wished I could clone them or grow them in the garden according to their specifications. Maybe a silicone-enhanced computerized replica of a human is the answer to our dreams?
Happy searching, dating, loving. This Valentine’s and every day hereafter!
Be yourself! Never give up! And remember: The longest relationship you're going to have is with YOURSELF!
Siggy Buckley, former matchmaker from Ireland.
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